We started producing our prime lamb with Wiltshire Horn/Dorper Composite sheep. We then added some Dorper rams; however have decided during this process that we prefer the Wiltshire breed. In 2013 we joined a young commercial Wiltipoll ram to some of our cross-bred ewes and produced some excellent poll, clean shedding lambs. As we decided to start our own Wiltipoll flock, we purchased two ASSBA registered Wiltipoll rams and some Wiltipoll ewes in 2013. We are now only joining registered Wiltipoll rams to all our ewes, including our Wiltshire Composite flock.
In 2018 we purchased an AWA registered A1 Wiltipoll ram, as well as some A1 Wiltipoll ewes, from The Reavesdale Wiltipoll Stud in NSW. Our Reavesdale ram (2017) was registered with ASSBA and joined to our ewes in March 2019, 2020 and again in 2021. This year we added a young TIMEMM Wiltipoll ram (2020) to join with selected ewes from 2019.
Our 2016, 2017 and 2018 GLENAL Wiltipoll lambs were sired by our BINGARA A1 Wiltipoll ram (2013). We also registered one of our GLENAL Wiltipoll rams (2014) with ASSBA (Australian Stud Sheep Breeders Association) and ran him with our Wiltshire Composite ewes in 2017.
We previously used the following rams to develop our Wiltshire Composite flock:
Our original Wiltshire Horn x Dorper First Cross was a commercial ram, purchased in 2009 from Patricia Ballantyne’s Wiltshire Horn Stud (Munro, Victoria). This property produced both Wiltshire Horn and Dorper sheep and a cross-breed of the two. The ram had strong Wiltshire Horn characteristics. We previously joined this ram each year with our original Wiltshire Horn x Dorper First Cross ewes, also purchased from the same property. This ram has now been sold.
We purchased our first White Dorper ram in 2011 from Paul Hamilton’s Dorper Stud (Berwick, Victoria). In 2011, 2012 & 2013 we joined him with ewes retained from earlier lambing seasons. He has produced some great terminal lambs for market. This ram was sold in 2014
In 2012, we purchased a second White Dorper ram from Paul Hamilton. This ram shed completely by summer and produced good lambs when joined with the younger ewes. We sold him towards the end of 2013 as we had decided to reduce our flock and wished to increase the percentage of Wiltshire type sheep.
We purchased a commercial Wiltipoll ram from the Gee Tee Stud (Gunbower, Victoria) and joined him with our younger ewes in March 2013 in order to produce lambs closer to the standards being developed for the Wiltipoll breed. He produced some excellent lambs and has now been sold.
In December 2013, we acquired two registered Wiltipoll rams that had been purchased earlier by the Gee Tee Stud. In March 2014 we joined one of these rams (BUSSEY) with a small group of ASSBA registered Wiltipoll ewes (also from the Gee Tee Stud) and the other ram (GRANGE VALE) with our flock of Wiltshire Composite ewes. These rams were used again to produce our 2015 drop Wiltipoll and Composite lambs. They were replaced in 2016 with an AWA registered A1 BINGARA Wiltipoll ram and a young ASSBA registered ram (2014) from our flock.